Smoke comes and takes us as story takes characters away in the Bible. Story is a thief whose trick is indirection, takes empathy away, killing a character at a time. You know and feel less, the more story

Their coats. In one coat he found a jackknife, a cup; en every coat, more rocks

Where he was an old man and his flesh needed tending, needs

Reading, needed cutting like a book. Came

To find one thing – an ending, which is always a dream meaning: desolation

He comes to take it all, to take it all away

That a people not be destroyed: we sustain paradox

If I have a body, I am resisting light

In what ways do we consent to evil?

Not by stoning

But by holding

The promise is outside. You have a way

Out, a river, and your imagination (your

Reason) is a basket. Reason is imaginary

In Antioch they are first called Christians

It is in the nature of light that anything

Can approach it; it can withhold itself from nothing –

It is all motion-to

This morning I had enough food. I was not in trouble when I reached for it, I was safe. I had water to wash a pot, a bowl, a spoon… and places to put these things, places to go. Given his bounty, won’t I give away? First, can’t I admit that I have privilege enough to make space, to empty a space? This activates my will, gives it license to move out of me. First: don’t have. Then: give the rest. The will is public property. (Adrienne Kennedy)